Mike in the Wild

Everyone knows I like to write about the ducks visiting Arizona's waterways during the winter.  Most of these birds are escaping the colder temperatures of their summer breeding ranges far away in northern latitudes.  One species I've seen regularly this season is the green-winged teal.   While I've not observed any in my Phoenix neighborhood, I have encountered flocks of them at two locations in the state.   The first teals I saw were the several individuals wintering at the Riparian Preserve in the city of Gilbert's Water Ranch complex in early January.  And on a quick stop at Watson Lake in Prescott this past February I observed what appeared to be a larger flock of more than a dozen.    They're not the easiest birds to photograph for a couple of reasons: they're always on the water and they're wary of human spectators.   So with my new 400mm sized Tamron lens attached to my Canon, I was anxious to return to Gilbert and get...

By this time every year I've usually written a couple of stories about the waterfowl visiting local waterways.  Phoenix is crisscrossed by canals carrying fresh water from reservoirs up the Salt River and by parks landscaped with lakes.  These bodies of water create habitat for lots of waterfowl, especially seasonal migrants from northern climates. Last winter for the first time in the neighborhood, I discovered mergansers - both the hooded and common varieties - and canvasbacks spending some time on these local waterways.  They joined my list of local first time sightings, a collection that includes wood ducks, northern pintails, goldeneyes and northern shovelers, to name a few. But this year is different.  My stops at nearby Granada Park allow me to see a multitude of visitors like ring-necked ducks and American wigeons: they're there every winter.  And I spot plenty of mallards dabbling in the Arizona Canal and American coots paddling on my neighborhood's...

I see lots of what I call water birds in Arizona.  Also called waterfowl, these creatures spend most of their lives on or near bodies of water, where they depend on a lake or river for their primary habitat.  But there are many other general names for the ever-present mallards and the winter-visiting ring-necked ducks, to name just a couple of the species that are easy to spot in Phoenix. Ducks are frequently described as either dabbling or diving, with the fowl in the first category (e.g. mallards) feeding closer to the water's surface and the second (e.g. ring-necked ducks) hunting deeper below.  And depending on your source of information, dabbling ducks are very often referred to as marsh ducks, and divers as bay ducks.  Now you may be starting to understand why I just call them all water birds. But I became even more enlightened when on a recent trip to San Diego I discovered yet another group of these birds: sea ducks.  These animals are indeed duc...